The Healing Art of Tai Chi: Becoming One With Nature

If you see T'ai Chi for the first time, you might wonder whether you're witnessing a form of dance, prayer, stretching exercise, deep-breathing program, or a martial art. The answer would be "yes" to all of the above and more. T'ai Chi, like most ancient Eastern practices, does not fit strict Western categories. As this book testifies, T'ai Chi among other things offers relief from stress, breathing disorders, muscular ailments, chronic headaches, as well as a variety of modern office and sports-related complaints and deep emotional problems. Few today are as well positioned to explain the healing powers of T'ai Chi as Dr. Martin Lee. Dr. Lee is a renowned engineering physicist, known as the "guru" of model-based accelerator control systems, who helped design an atomic accelerator that led to Nobel Prize-winning discoveries of the "Si" particle. He is also a T'ai Chi master, the only American who has studied with Yu Pen-Shih, one of China's foremost Ch'i Kung masters. Dr. Lee has developed a ground-breaking practical program that combines Eastern and Western approaches to wellness which he calls "physical philosophy." Its goal is to help people become "one with nature," a Buddhist term for the restoration of health. The rewards of his program he describes as Self-Happiness, Self-Control, Self-Realization, and Self-Healing. Each of these benefits receives a carefully developed chapter complete with exercises to build healthy habits. On every page, the central focus is on the flow of energy or "inner breath" that T'ai Chi is designed to evoke through four basic instructions: Relax. Breathe. Feel the earth. Do nothing extra. Here is a valuable health/exercise/meditation program, a breakthrough in combining the most ancient spiritual insights with the most advanced scientific knowledge.